


End of the Road

by pocketmouse



Category: Bloodbuzz Ohio - The National (Song)
Genre: Bees, Blood, Other, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4069777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketmouse/pseuds/pocketmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well that went poorly, as usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of the Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/gifts).



> I'm sorry, I don't even know what I wrote here. It ended up coming from a very strange place. Possible influences include Fargo, Hard Core Logo, and that episode of the X-Files where the ghosts make Mulder and Scully think they've shot each other. Um. I hope you like it?

Some say love’s like a punch to the gut, or a wrench to the soul. Or a fire in the heart, but I don’t know. It’s not a fire, it’s a noise, so loud it swallows you whole — like a rocket going off, or a swarm of bees. Have you ever seen bees — some bees, they have this thing, where they swarm an intruder, like a wasp, absolutely cover it, and basically cook it to death with their own combined body heat.  
Okay, so maybe the fire thing is at least somewhat apt. If you’re into a destructive kind of love. Self-immolation, you and me. And fifty of our closest friends, pushing out whoever it is that doesn’t belong.  
Which is usually me.  
This may be getting a little too apt.

But my point was, really, it’s a massive force — huge, so big it overwhelms your senses. Overwhelms your _reason_. You do things you never thought you could do — would do — _should_ do, and it spits you out the other side, stumbling, sweaty, hoping that hornet is dead and isn’t about to bring its entire clan to your doorstep to devour your friends and family.  
Metaphorically speaking.  
Metaphorically.  
I just wish the gun had been a metaphor. 

The gun I bought from the back of a truck in West Texas. The money, I stole. I didn’t have other options, and I needed the dough. But I had the whole thing planned out — which is rare, but everything was riding on this last chance, and you know what they say: go big or go home. Which isn’t exactly an option open to me any more, so here we are.  
I gave forty thousand to your loan-shark of a brother, and used the rest to get some more ammo, a fake ID, and that junker I drove up here in.  
I’m still not sure what I forgot to account for, other than, well — you.  
And I’m not sure why I forgot to.

I think, if I had the chance to start all over again, I would still like to meet you. You’ve been an important part of my life — a wild, uncontrollable part, and five days out of seven you still frighten the hell out of me. But maybe our timing could have been better. If we’d met while you were still in college, or if I had a job. If your mom hadn’t gotten cancer, and I hadn’t quit smoking. There’s a lot of what ifs out there. What if I’d had a real father figure growing up. What if you took your meds. What if I wasn’t a colossal fuckup.  
You know. What ifs.  
Little things.

I always wanted — I already know this is stupid, you don’t have to say it — I always wanted one of those houses with the wraparound porches. And I can already hear you say it, so save your breath: if the porch wraps all the way around the house, that means there’s no attached garage. I know. I don’t care. Still better than a car park, and you can’t argue with that.  
Don’t try and argue with that, there’s blood everywhere, you’ve got more important things to concentrate on.  
No, I just always wanted one because I thought if you had so much porch to use, your life must be pretty okay. How much time must you have to look at the sunset, or the kids playing in the yard, or watch the goddamn grass grow if you have that much fucking porch.  
I said it was stupid, you don’t have to remind me. At least what you wanted was always practical.  
Even if I never got it for you the practical way.  
Or at all this time, looks like, huh?

I’d thought about playing it straight, but I guess it’s just as easy to fuck up with the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Or I guess it fucks with you — good intentions, you know?  
Just tell your sister that I’m sorry, tell your brother whatever you want. Don’t tell my folks fuck-all, let the damn fake ID be good for something. If you hurry, we can do this, and then no one’ll know. You’ll have to help me with the pistol, but if you hold it steady, I’ll pull. I hid your cell phone in the trunk liner, by the time you get a signal, I’ll be gone.  
Just keep the story simple, and you’ll get out of this fine.  
Cry ugly for the cops, baby. I know you can do it.

I think when I said love was like bees, that might’ve been shock.  
I think I was the wasp.  
Maybe you were the wasp. Maybe all of us were, and that’s where it went wrong. Because the buzzing just keeps getting louder, and —  
No, definitely shock.

I’m not sure I did anything right from the word ‘go,’ but I loved you — love you — even if I showed it all wrong. But let’s fuck up together one more time here, and maybe no one else’ll be able to tell the difference, but we will. We’ll know we did it all right, first time, last time, and maybe no other times in between, but where it counted and usually with gasoline. For other people it’s skinned knees and a split lip, for us it’s broken bones and a mouthful of blood. This isn’t the kind of fight you can win, but a fight where one of us came out alive — well that’d be a change, wouldn’t it?

Love’s doing things you’ll regret, and things you can’t live without. It’s a devil on your shoulder, but it’s giving you hope. It’s something different for each of us, but it’s something everyone knows. It’s a wild-eyed, adrenaline, act-now, do-later speedball, a plucked string whose vibration won’t slow. Maybe none of this is right, maybe I’ve got it all wrong. But I know what you do when you love me, and what you do when you don’t.  
And I know which one of us’ll live, and which one of us won’t. At this point nothing can change that, but what happens after —  
Happily wasn’t ever in the cards, but shackles could be. 

This may not have been my best plan ever.  
But I don’t see you having a better one.  
Unless bleeding counts as having a plan.


End file.
